Re: Seymour: A Continuation
citycabn (citycabn@gateway.net)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 12:47:15 -0700
Jim,
Thanks, many thanks, for taking the trouble to *actually read* my posts.
Really!
I spent most of this morning on a long letter to a friend. Then banged out
the terse replies to "S: A Continuation." And am in the midst of changing
medications. Which is to say, I will read over yours of below, again, maybe
reread Bananafish & pertinent parts in SAI and Hapworth, and then try and
respond. This might take more than a few days.
yours,
without answers,
Bruce
-----Original Message-----
From: AntiUtopia@aol.com <AntiUtopia@aol.com>
To: bananafish@lists.nyu.edu <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Date: Monday, October 11, 1999 12:27 PM
Subject: Re: Seymour: A Continuation
>In a message dated 10/11/99 2:35:07 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
>citycabn@gateway.net writes:
>
><<
> Jim,
> I personally don't think JDS painted himself into a corner. Think the
> critics, etc. alight on S.'s suicide and tried to beat JDS over the head
> with it along the lines of how can S. be so great if he committed suicide.
> To my mind, JDS/Buddy tells us why S. committed suicide in SAI. The
entire
> prelude is about this. And ends with the section re the cororner's
report,
> whether it is consumption, loneliness or suicide:
>
> "isn't it plain how the true artist-seer actually dies? I say (and
> everything that follows in these pages all too possibly stands or falls on
> my being at least *nearly* right)--I say that the true artist-seer, the
> heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death
by
> his own scruples, the blinding shapes and colors of his own sacred human
> conscience." >>
>
>hmm...then I'm not sure I understood the following paragraphs:
>
><<Certainly S. exists. He exists in the books, and in the minds and hearts
of
>faithful Glass readers. I suggest not to overemphasize the suicide. JDS
>has to deal with the suicide *because* that is where he started in '48.
>Seymour, as Seymour presented in '55 to '65, did not yet exist. But since
>he has, so to speak, painted himself in a corner from the outset, given
the
>fact of S.'s suicide, JDS does have to go back to it. The entire prelude
to
>SAI is an attempt to "correct" the status of the suicide in his readers'
>minds. Someone commits suicide in the West and everyone is up in arms,
>feeling it negates the person's entire life. --Bruce>>
>
>See, here it seems like you're saying JDS has to go back to Seymour's
suicide
>to defend Seymour against the "little mindedness" of western critics who
>think that Seymour isn't that great for committing suicide -- and in This
way
>Salinger painted himself into a corner.
>
>So while you are saying essentially the same thing now that you did in the
>earlier post, you did say in the earlier post that Salinger painted himself
>into a corner with Seymour's suicide.
>
>But the problem I think with the ideas presented is that you marginalize
the
>death, when I think it is indeed central to Salinger thematically.
>
>The following paragraphs are from that original post too:
>
><<So Hapworth could be
>>justified perhaps as part of Buddy's attempt to unravel the origins of
>>whatever led Seymour to suicide. --Camille
>
>Seymour himself mentions in the letter that he won't live longer than a
>well-preserved telephone pole. It ain't a big deal. Hapworth, I'll say it
>again, is to show the reader that Seymour grew, developed, and became the
>Seymour of the poems, parables, and anecdotes. I imagine Christ Himself or
>Buddha weren't great shakes at seven, and their Hapworth letters would be
>flawed, too. -- Bruce>>
>
>I don't think anyone's saying the Hapworth letters are flawed. My problem
is
>that they're not flawed enough. Too much light and brilliance for a seven
>year old. Too mature a prose style, too well read, too too much of
>everything **good**.
>
>Jim
>